It is tempting to think that political activist Naomi Wolf is nothing more than a panic merchant, someone who has spent too long analysing the inherent dangers of living in America, and not enough time having fun.
However, to dismiss the claims Wolf makes in her new book, The End of America, as mere exaggeration would be naïve in the extreme. Regardless of whether they are totally correct or not, they are still alarming and challenging, and are worthy of our attention.
At first glance, the claims she makes seem amazing and, quite frankly, impossible, yet the further you read on, the more relevant her arguments become.
Wolf has compared the decline of historical democracies, such as 1920s Italy and 1930s Germany into fascism, to the decline of civil rights in America today. She lists the ten steps that fascist dictators have taken in the past to implement power, and shows how these steps are being mirrored in the US today.
In particular, Wolf takes note of some of the more insidious tactics of governments, particularly subverting the truth and the meaning of truth. "Sending a current of lies into the information stream is part of a classic psychological operation to generate a larger shift " a new reality in which the truth can no longer be ascertained and no longer counts." (Author's italics)
A society where the truth no longer functions the way it should or, even worse, no longer exists, is an alarming thought. As Christians, we should be acutely aware of the importance of truth and so this claim by Wolf takes on even more importance.
Wolf even includes a call to arms to her Christian readership, emphasising to us the importance of this fight by reminding us that our own hero was "a political prisoner seized by a powerful state, convicted without a trial, and tortured by military who were just doing their jobs".
Wolf has presented her arguments clearly and compellingly, giving her readers much to think about. While the state of affairs she warns about in America has not yet been echoed in Australia, it is important to be aware of the possibility of this, and to be ready to defend the truth.
